What can an individual do? If your circumstances allow, consider checking if your living space is energy efficient. If not, try to make it so (insulate, weatherproof, etc.). Consider reducing your meat consumption, and consider using transit. If you're thus able/inclined, identify a larger-scale evidence-based measure you could support, and then put some time into supporting it. There's a host of different things to choose from, and striving for perfection is less important than doing something productive consistently.
Approximately the least productive thing I've seen is turning climate change into a heavily politicized issue. I'm certainly turned off the minute there's moralizing/virtue signalling from any direction.
I find this webpage a helpful resource.
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
I had been under the impression that air travel was a big source of CO2 emissions, so I guess I'm glad to hear I don't have to feel guilty every time I fly to see family or for work.
What are the meaningful changes individuals can make to reduce their carbon footprint?
Ronda
Dr. Ronda Arab
Associate Professor of English
Simon Fraser University
pronouns: she/her
From: Derek Bingham <derek_bingham@sfu.ca>
Sent: 03 November 2021 13:22:39
To: Igor Herbut; Lucas Herrenbrueck; Bernhard Riecke; Lisa Shapiro; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUIgor, You misunderstand me. I was just stating what I heard.
I am largely resigned to whatever restrictions NSERC puts on the use of the money they send me. My opinion is largely beside the point.
Derek Bingham
Professor
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Simon Fraser University
From: Igor Herbut
Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 1:12:17 PM
To: Derek Bingham; Lucas Herrenbrueck; Bernhard Riecke; Lisa Shapiro; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUHi Derek,
that would not surprise me, given the government's enthusiasm for look-good policies. The question is, however, should we all happily go along with such restrictions, or not. As I already wrote, I feel not not only that air travel restrictions would be hugely detrimental for science as we know it (it would basically put the brake on research of a significant portion of the SFU physics department to which I belong), but it would be completely pointless as far as the actual CO2 emissions are concerned. In 2020, the estimates are (NYT, for instance) that the air travel was around 50% of what it was, so this unwanted reduction was higher than any restriction that can be imposed. Yet, as anybody who cares about the real data can see on the official US observatory site
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
the effect of that drop in flying on the steady increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (which BTW is pretty uniform around the globe) is really null. This is of course not surprising, given that air travel amounts for only about 2% of globe's CO2 emissions.
I am sorry for harping on this point, but I find it hard to understand any enthusiasm for measures such as these, except maybe that we could feel better about ourselves after taking them. The reason why air travel may indeed account for a higher-than-usual portion of, for example, UBC's carbon footprint (as somebody mentioned earlier), is because as any ratio, this one also has the numerator and the denominator. It is not that the numerator is particularly high, but the denominator is low! See the Canada's energy chart at
for example. The biggest polluter, coal, already counts for only 6% of Canada's energy production, and I would imagine in BC it is probably even less. Look at similar charts of some other countries and see the difference.
Igor Herbut
physics
From: Derek Bingham <derek_bingham@sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 11:56 AM
To: Lucas Herrenbrueck; Bernhard Riecke; Lisa Shapiro; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFURe: "Anyone aware if funding agencies are having this conversation already? If not, how can we get them to?"
I was told by someone at NSERC last year that they were expecting a directive from the federal government in the next year or so about limiting air travel and such. Perhaps the election put a pause on this? I suspect the Tri-Councils will be asked to propose a policy in the next year, and the news will make its way to us shortly thereafter.
Derek
Derek Bingham
Professor
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Simon Fraser University
From: Lucas Herrenbrueck <herrenbrueck@sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 11:45:14 AM
To: Bernhard Riecke; Lisa Shapiro; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUI would definitely support Meg's idea to make "least carbon intensive mode of travel that's feasible" a funding priority, on par with or even above "lowest cost". But is the strict lowest cost rule an SFU rule or a granting agency rule? I haven't had such issues with my grants.
Beyond, I would also support making carbon offsets eligible as research expenses. And farther into the future, maybe even making them mandatory -- if you want grant funds to pay for your flight, you need to budget for carbon offsets too.
I understand that carbon offsets are currently controversial and suffer from the presence of inefficient and even bad faith actors. But the funding agency could exercise control over this. Identify and designate two or three "gold standard" carbon offset programs, even if they're more expensive than the sketchier options, and then require carbon offsets for every mile traveled/claimed. Based on my reading of the market, it wouldn't add more than a few % to the cost of travel.
I strongly disagree that rationing flights, to one per faculty per year or such, would be more equitable. We're not talking about vacations but grant funded research travel. Expenses already need to be justified in order to get funding. If carbon offsets make research travel more expensive then the justification needs to be increased or the travel reduced.
Anyone aware if funding agencies are having this conversation already? If not, how can we get them to?
From: Bernhard Riecke <ber1@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 3, 2021 7:46:30 AM
To: Lisa Shapiro; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUlots of good points - and I fully agree that without ANY decent or even moderately fast train on the whole west coast we're, well, let's not go there. it's embarrassing to say the least compared to other places where trains upwards of 250km/h is normal and reduces/removes the need for much air travel
sometimes simple things such as transit passes for faculty & staff could also help a bit to reduce our carbon footprint. And secure bike lockers at all major skytrain stations...
my 2 cents
Bernhard
On 2021-11-02 18:17, Lisa Shapiro wrote:
I just want to highlight what seems to be a salient difference between Concordia and SFU. The costs borne by forgoing air travel for Concordia faculty are far less than for SFU faculty, assuming that we hold stable whatever value we want to assign to in person research opportunities.Concordia faculty are able to continue to meet in person (pandemic conditions permitting), for networking and collaboration, while foregoing flying in many cases simply because of their location. They have easy access to trains and buses to get them to other major research centres (in Toronto, Ottawa, and throughout Ontario and Quebec, as well as in New England and Mid-Atlantic states in the US), with travel times of under a day, and in many cases either equal to or less than the door-to-door time of flying. From SFU, we are a half-day away from Seattle (driving is actually faster than taking the train), and travel anywhere else without flying takes a very long time.Maybe if the west coast of this continent had some high speed rail networks we could even up the cost-benefit analysis, and I am happy to advocate for that, and even commit to using it if it ever gets built.
Lisa
Lisa Shapiro email: lshapiro@sfu.ca
Professor of Philosophy o. 778.782.9025
Philosophy Department f. 778.782.3033
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Website: lisacshapiro.org
PI: SSHRC Partnership: Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy
Coeditor with Marcy Lascano: https://broadviewpress.com/product/early-modern-philosophy/
I respectfully acknowledge that SFU is on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations.
On Nov 1, 2021, at 3:35 PM, Igor Herbut <igor_herbut@sfu.ca> wrote:
Hi Anthony,
it is extremely difficult to even roughly estimate impact on the climate of any single driver, and the UN IPCC usually estimates them only with "low confidence". Even the central quantity of interest, the "equilibrium climate sensitivity" is after 50 years of study known within the error bars or roughly 50% of its value. What is, however, relatively noncontroversial are the CO2 emissions from various sources, and the overall concentration, which can be directly measured, and is the main issue anyway, since CO2 stays in the atmosphere a long time, and at least according to the IPCC is the main culprit.
At any rate, the most important heating effects are water-vapor feedbacks, and as with any non-linear feedback effects they are very difficult to estimate, particularly on the long run. Therefore the great and well-known uncertainties of the actual climate projections. This will not surprise any physicist or engineer, and is well documented in the IPCC reports themselves, but maybe less prominently in their "summaries for policy makers".
Eliminating the air travel altogether would most likely not cause even a bump in the CO2-concentration Keeling curve I quoted. But it would surely negatively and strongly impact the state of sciences, at least natural sciences I am familiar with. I would suppose that everybody would agree that we need more scientific understanding of the complicated phenomena, one of which is climate, certainly not less of it. In my experience it is next to impossible to do any serious collaborative work over zoom, and not face-to-face. One should refrain from generalizing one's own mode of work to fields and activity one may not be terribly familiar with.
Igor
From: Anthony Perl
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 2:53 PM
To: Igor Herbut
Cc: Craig Scratchley; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUHi Igor,
One needs to be very careful when distinguishing the climate impacts of aircraft emissions versus those from ground level sources. Turns out burning fossil fuels in the tropopause, where lots of aircraft cruise, has a 200% - 300% greater impact on the climate than burning the same fuels at ground level.
See:
Anthony
On 2021-11-01 2:46 p.m., Igor Herbut wrote:
Dear Anthony, Rhonda, and colleagues,
before changing drastically our lifestyles and thinking of ways how to force others to follow, maybe one should ask oneself: 1) what proportion of the global CO2 emissions actually comes from air travel?,2) what effect the severe travel restriction in 2020/21 had on the actual CO2 increase?
For those who may not know, the answers are: 1) around 2%, 2) none.
References:
1) See, the US environmental protection agency's site, under "Climate change indicators" :
and under "Global greenhouse emissions", Fig. 2. Plenty of other useful info on that site about the actual rate of see level rise, "increase" in extreme weather events, warming of the ocean, etc.
2) See the CO2 Keeling curve at Mauna Loa observatory:
particularly the left panel. Can you see a difference?
I am assuming that those entertaining the thoughts about sweeping changes in the way we all work at SFU know well the numerous (numerical) facts about the global warming phenomenon, beyond the latest headlines.
Cheers,
Igor Herbut.
From: Anthony Perl <aperl@sfu.ca>
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 12:43 PM
To: Ronda Arab; Martin Hahn
Cc: Craig Scratchley; Nicky Didicher; Simon Watkins; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUHello colleagues,SFU is way behind on the "flying less" academic agenda. See:
On 2021-11-01 12:28 p.m., Ronda Arab wrote:
Do a lot of staff and faculty have electric cars? I would think that in itself would put pressure.
I think Covid has taught us a lot about how much of our professional air travel is *really* necessary. I’ve felt guilty about my air travel footprint for a while and am going to seriously cut down on conferences and research trips.
Ronda
Sent by magic
On Nov 1, 2021, at 12:23 PM, Martin Hahn <mhahn@sfu.ca> wrote:
No. It is rather pitiful. There still are a total of 4 level 2 charging stations at SFU. (There are 6 at Capilano U, around 50 at UBC plus 6 level 3). Here, there is also a bunch of 110v outlets available for charging in West Mall.I was told when I inquired pre-covid that more would be built soon and that SFU was waiting for gov. subsidies. But there have been, and continue to be, such subsidies and nothing seems to be happening.
Overall, a token effortMH
On 11/1/2021 11:54 AM, Ronda Arab wrote:
Are there very many electrical charging stations for staff, faculty and students who use electric cars to get to work?Ronda
Sent by magic
On Nov 1, 2021, at 11:53 AM, Craig Scratchley <wcs@sfu.ca> wrote:
Here's one of a number of articles on the subject:
They were working on this plant for a couple of years perhaps, but the switchover was just this past summer apparently. If you live in UniverCity, your building might get heating from this plant as well.
Also, I have noticed that facilities services has some electric vehicles, but I couldn't find a fossil/hybrid/electric breakdown in a quick search. Presumably they are trying to lower the fraction of non-electric vehicles as older vehicles go out of service. I once read that because it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce a vehicle, there is apparently some environmental argument to allowing a vehicle to live out its useful life. I never looked into the detailed tradeoffs.
Craig
From: Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:28:31 AM
To: Simon Watkins; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUThanks, Simon! Glad to know about the wood scraps.Nicky
From: Simon Watkins
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:17:46 AM
To: Nicky Didicher; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUActually SFU now burns biofuel for its heating, consisting of wood scraps mostly.They upgraded the heating plant a couple of years ago.Still true about the cars though
Simon WatkinsDepartment of Physics
Simon Fraser University
8888 University DriveBurnaby, BC, V5A 1S6CanadaTel:778 782 5763
From: Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:05 AM
To: academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Fossil fuel use at SFUWhile I’m pleased to know that SFU is increasing its efforts to remove invested money from the fossil fuel industry, isn’t our main boiler in the basement of the library (I believe the biggest one at a university in Western Canada) run off diesel? And aren’t the majority of SFU vehicles still gasoline powered?Nicky
Nicky Didicher, English,Simon Fraser University,pronouns she/elle![A button
with
"Hear my
name"
text for name
playback in
email
signature]()
Reduce, Organize, Communicate, be Kind!
At Simon Fraser University, we live and work on unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
-- Anthony Perl Professor and Director of Urban Studies Professor of Political Science Simon Fraser University #2111 - 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3 Tel: 778-782-7887 Fax: 778-782-5297 e-mail: aperl@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.-- Anthony Perl Professor and Director of Urban Studies Professor of Political Science Simon Fraser University #2111 - 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3 Tel: 778-782-7887 Fax: 778-782-5297 e-mail: aperl@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.
--
Bernhard Riecke, PhD
Professor | School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT)
Director of iSpace Lab | TEDxSFU license holder & speaker coach
My TEDx talk: "Could Virtual Reality make us more human?"
Simon Fraser University Surrey | 250 - 13450 102 Avenue, Surrey, BC V3T 0A3, Canada
Office: 2822 (Podium 2) | iSpaceLab.com/Riecke | SIAT homepage
E-mail: ber1@sfu.ca | skype: thebernie
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University